An Unexpected Gift

As a Tulsa alum I would like to thank SMU and especially UTEP for the gift berth for the Golden Hurricane into the Conference USA title game next week. UTEP has no one to blame but themselves neeeding to win one of their final two games against UAB and SMU, but they could not get the job done at home with UAB. Today, SMU played well enough offensively to stay in the game but UTEP sealed their own fate with 7 turnovers. As a result, SMU 40 UTEP 27. Tulsa will now play Central Florida for the C-USA title game next saturday with the winner meeting Fresno St in the Liberty Bowl.

Hope springs eternal. Weekend of football part 1

I have some trapped rage about certain games this weekend (Danny Amendola's fourth down catch was not a first down and etc.), but that's part 2 of this rant. For now, I choose to focus on the happier side of football.

Tulsa 38 Tulane 14

With apologies to R.D. over at cheap seats who has adopted the Green Wave, for good reason, Tulane stood between Tulsa and essentially clinching a bowl bid. So, although I'm sympathetic to their plight, my allegiances trump sympathy.
The game itself got off to a quick start. Tulane tried an onside kick to start the game which backfired drastically. The first offensive play for TU was a 48-yard TD strike from Paul Smith to Ashlan Davis. Although Tulane was able to tie the game on their opening drive with a Matt Forte 7-yard run, Tulsa scored 3 more touchdowns before halftime ( Davis 3-yard reception, Tarrion Adams 3-yard run and Uril Parrish with a 14-yard run). Scoring in the second half was sparse. Tarrion Adams scored on a 36-yard screen pass in the third and Brad Devault hit a short field goal to close the Tulsa scoring. Tulane's Lester Ricard led a quality drive for the Green Wave in the fourth culminating with a 35-yard strike to Cary Koch to close the scoring.
As expected, the Golden Hurricane outmatched the Green Wave. I was impressed by the resilience of Tulane's team. Although the defense struggled, their offense moved the football at times.
Tulsa will now wait patiently for the pending bowl bid which could be anywhere from Ft. Worth to Memphis (more on that later). Tulane will close out the year on the road in lovely Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

Hope does spring eternal for the Golden Hurricane as they are still alive in the race for the C-USA West title. Darell Hackney threw 4 touchdowns for UAB as they went into El Paso and upset #24 UTEP 35-23. While Tulsa's regular season is over, UTEP will face an improving SMU team coming off a sweep of the city of Houston's C-USA teams in Dallas Saturday. While it would be surprising to me if it happened, I have no choice but to pull for an SMU upset. Unlike other sports bloggers who try to maintain objective, I may no such claim.

Elsewhere...

Games of interest to friends and acquaintances

Congratulations also to the Commodores of Vanderbilt who, though they will be home for the holidays, did the football watching public a service by ensuring the Tennessee's offense will not appear in holiday programming.

Props to Central Florida for clinching C-USA East by continuing Rice's dismal season. This is impressive because last year UCF was the only "antiperfect" team in football last year. Now they are 8-3 and 7-1 in C-USA.

In games irrelevant to me
Congratulations to Joe Paterno and Penn State for winning the Big 11. I have to admit I was one of many who thought the game had passed Paterno by, but it was good to see Penn State prove us wrong.

Georgia Tech 14 Miami 10: There is misery at "The U" and thus there is rejoicing everywhere else. Former OU tailback Tashard Choice of Georgia Tech got a TD. Glad to see him having success.

No song quote since this is the longest blog post ever.

Thanks for reading. /rant

C-USA holday plans

As promised, this post will look at the bowl possibilities within Conference USA. I do so for my own enjoyment and to ponder where my alma mater may be spending the holiday. First, let's look at the bowl eligible teams and those who may become eligible. I would like to thank Rice, SMU, East Carolina, and Tulane for competing but they will be unable to travel to a bowl this year. As for the rest...

Bowl Eligible Teams
UTEP 8-1 (5-1 CUSA)
Central Florida 7 -3 (6-1 CUSA)
Tulsa 6-4 (5-2 CUSA)

Should Reach Bowl Team Status
Southern Miss 5-4 (4-2 CUSA)
Houston 5-4 (3-3 CUSA)

Needed Significant Help
Memphis 4-5 (3-3 CUSA)
Marshall 4-5 (2-4 CUSA)
UAB 4-5 (2-4 CUSA)

In the event all the remaining games play out according to form (with either the team with the better record, or the home team in case of even records winning), Central Florida would face UTEP in the C-USA title game presumably in El Paso. The winner of this game will be in the Liberty Bowl. C-USA has a number of other bowl tie-ins which will be filled by the remaining teams: the Wyndham New Orleans Bowl (played in Lafayette, LA), GMAC bowl, Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl, and Ft. Worth Bowl.

The GMAC and New Orleans bowls will likely select between Southern Miss and Houston partly due to proximity to the venue. Tulsa would also be in this discussion but there are other options which make more sense in terms of travel and fan support. Bowl committees look for team that "travel well." That is they have a larger number of fans and alums that can and will attend the game.

Tulsa would seem a natural fit for the Ft. Worth bowl as its campus is roughly 3 hours away, although I'm sure they will be discussed for the Hawai'i Bowl due to the former ties with the WAC since their opponent would be a former conference foe in presumably Boise St. UCF would then end up with the remaining bowl.

Just as a personal note, I hope Tulsa ends up in Ft. Worth because it's our best chance to make the university stand out.

Counters
19 days until my silver anniversary of existence.
25 days until 5591 in Houston

Bowl eligibility for the Hurricane

Tulsa 45 East Carolina 13

The first half of Tulsa-ECU looked very similar to last three TU home games, all of which were one-score games that went down to the wire or into overtime. With ECU up 13-10 at the break and all of my other college predictions (other than OU beating A&M) going horribly wrong, the nerves were more on-edge than usual. As it turns out, it was just the paranoia at work. Tulsa regained control with a 38-yard touchdown catch by Garrett Mills, the NCAA leader among tight ends in both receptions per game and yards per game.

--- A brief aside---

(He's not a member of the Mackey award watchlist. The official reason is that is flexed out as a wide receiver or and H-back too much to fit the comittee's definition of a "natural" tight end. Memo to the committee, I guess Tony Gonzalez or Antonio Gates are "natural" tight ends either. I'm not saying Garrett's anywhere in the league of the guys I just mentioned. I'm just suggesting that the position has evolved. /rant)

--- We now rejoin our regularly scheduled post ---

Following an ECU turnover, freshman running back Tarrion Adams scored on a 14-yard run to extend the lead to 24-13. Two plays into the fourth Paul Smith hit Ashlan Davis from 29 yards to extend to 31-13. Uril Parrish and Cauvey Jackson added late rushing touchdowns to complete the scoring.

Congratulations to the Hurricane for becoming eligible for the second bowl in three years. Hopefully this one's in a better climate than Boise. Next post I intend to look at the bowl possibilities within Conference USA.

Song Lyric of the Day

Gold, blue and red,

Go right ahead

Down the field to victory"

excerpt from the TU fight song

In the spirit of the intention of Veterans day

I would like to extend my appreciation and sincere thanks to the veterans that have helped protect this country. I understand, in the current climate of this country, it appears the veteran appreciation is not promoted as much as it should be, but I hope if any veterans read this you understand that I and many others resprect your courage and strength in accomplishing your missions both past and present.

Song lyric of the day
"I just got my first letter since I've been here
And I read it a hundred times since yesterday
It was warm relief from this chilly cage of fear
And it promised me that more were on the way"
Caroline's Spine -- "Soldier Song"

Band promotion a step too far

I'm never one to complain about a band's promotion. Having friends who are musicians, I understand that promotion can take some strange forms, some of which are out of the artist's control (when labels intervene). That said I was a little taken aback by Universal's latest attempt to promote one of my favorite bands, Blue October. In preparation for the release of Foiled, Universal has included Blue's "18th Floor Balcony" on a DVD entitled "What's New" which is being given away free at Wal-mart with the painful acquistion of Now 20. While I applaud Universal for trying to further publicize Blue, There are some alliances that are too unholy for me.

First off, without regard to other political disagreements with Wal-mart, It will still forever be condemned in my eyes for requiring that everything sold there must be edited for content. I feel the editing of music is an unnecessary attack on artistic freedom which also shows a lack of respect for the customers' ability to make their own decisions as far as which music to buy. For this reason alone, I can't support the Wal-mart free DVD, even with Blue. Given that some of Justin and company's music emphasizes the need to freely express sentiments in music ("Inner Glow") or often deals in subjects which some may deem controversial ("Razorblade"," Angel"), it is surprising to me that this partnership could exist. Though I can't bring myself to go to Wal-mart and participate, I hope and know that many new fans will be created as a result of this exposure, I just would rather not see Wal-mart involved in the further promotion of bands I hope succeed.

My second flaw with the method is the use of Now 20 as a gateway. Those of you who know music are aware of this this semiannual abomination to music in general. Can any of the band featured on the "What's New" DVD expect to gain anything.? You would hope for name recognition and several new fans, but just a thought, do we really want people whose idea of a good CD purchase is to spend 15 dollars on the same mix of overplayed debris they could have acquired by recording their local pop station for two hours and cutting the commercial. This group doesn't strike me as the type to experiment with new musical options.

Then again I'm frequently wrong.

Song Lyric of the day
"What ever happened to our inner glow?
What ever happened to the song, the soul, the me I used to know?
What ever happened to my radio?
What ever happened to my song?
It was my song."

Blue October -- "Inner Glow"